Dennis´ Poker Blog

[CuteRaven]

Ok, there were two players that were on all or almost all of my tables. One was "Cursedin50s" and the other one was "Suarez" or something like that (some latino surname sounding name), I assumed those two to be the highest volume players/ leaderboard contenders during my session.

 

[Dennis__]

I played as Suaroz for quite some time, so yeah, that was me

[Dennis__]

If anybody wants to see me play I would be open for some idea-exchanging. Just pm me. Might not be a bad thing to have someone evaluate my play with an objective mind

[skyforthewin]

Hi dennis gl with this im rspca12/different names played a few stg sitting around 30th cant compete with u guys. Games have got prety tough due to promo  still beatable but mass tabling dont think so. Is it worth it going for extra few hundred. Feel i am ahead of player pool  but if i was 12 tabling 13 hours a day i would be b/e or losing.  But wp on u grind effort but u in war with 2nd an u gona have to up volume imo scary thought. 

[P0kerM0nk]

Just dropping in for some support, don't know anything about SnG's but never good to see a massive loss but as long as you don't go on tilt mode or end up playing your C game or worse and you are confident with your game just keep your head down. I also agree that most promotions are probably overvalued in a way that people end up playing too many tables or too many hours for a return that might possibly be less than if they had stuck with their normal playing set up / schedule. It's good if you can pick up some extra $$$ whilst playing how you normally play but that probably means you already play a decent volume or high enough stake.

Good luck with the rest of the grind Dennis :peace:

[Dennis__]

I give up. At least for today. I am another 270€ down. Second place is 20 points behind me but he seems to be playing a ridiculous amount of tables and will overtake me anyway. Better to concede now and save the frustration later on.

I don´t know. There is a part in me that tells me that I am obviously the worst reg at the tables and royally wasting my life. Then I look at my allin results and just think this is ridiculous. In any way it´s frustrating.

On the other hand I have had 5 or 6 days like yesterday on partypoker and somehow I am still 8.000€ up this year. I am pretty sure that I am not a losing player in these games.

Speaking of party poker, I did some loose calculations in my head while playing and I am unsure weather it is even more profitable to play here. I play the same stakes with the same toughness on party but with a combined rakeback deal of 130% to 150%. I think I can make more money there without the need to fight for 1st or 2nd place on the leaderboard plus I have the comfort of playing hypers, which I am more comfortable with and I can actually take some time off.

What ROI do you guys think is possible for an average reg at the moment? I have a rough idea but don´t want to influence anyone´s ideas just yet. Just curious. 

Just some anecdotes. I played 7,5 hours and if I counted correctly I won 3 50s. Played two 100s. First one AT<AJ and goodbye. Second one AK<AQ and goodbye. Didn´t really help me. 25s seemed to go allright.

[FreedoM]

@Dennis__ Just because things don't go your way doesn't mean you're wasting you're life. If your goal is to make money, battling regs isn't the way to go about it. If you wan't to test your skills then it's where you supposed to be. Either way, keep faith and better days are around the corner. :cash:

[Dennis__]

@FreedoM apparently battling regs with >100% rakeback is the way it´s done these days. Soft games on a reasonable stake that run with a decent volume seem to be a thing of the past unfortunately

[Groggy]

I've been there before as well Dennis. You get super pumped for a promo like this and think of some figures in your head of what you'd like to win (even though money orientated goals are super bad) and go super hard for it and it just ends up being disappointing and you end up feeling disillusioned with it. On multiple occasions I have doubled my hours and increased my tables for rake race promos and subsequently end up doing worse than an average month. I've been there before with confidence issues as well when running bad.

 

I think the game quality has been pretty tough, moreso than I expected. For me there's a big jump in the standard of the average 25 5man that runs and the average 50 5man. It seems like with your 6-man hyper background that the shallow stack part of the game is the main area where you're making your edge over other players. It could well be that at deeper stacks your -ev vs at least some other regulars in the pool, especially with your table count compared to theirs. It could be that it is neutralizing your shallow edge a fair amount which is really cranking up the variance. Maybe play an amount of tables which is comfortable and get really dialled in. Maybe focus on what some of the other regs are doing and keep an open mind. Maybe you like some of the stuff they're doing which you could implement into your own game. Maybe you don't like how they are playing and you can feel more confident about your edge. Maybe you aren't adjusting to the player pool efficiently enough and losing ev that way by trying to play too 'GTO'. It's a high variance format. If variance had gone in your favour your confidence would be sky high and you wouldn't give grinding hard all the tables a second thought.

 

With your skillset you have some transferable skills to other formats to make some extra money there. Grinding satellites should be a really decent option for you. As should playing small field tournaments where you are going to end up playing short handed/ heads up reasonably often with a large edge. I personally think grinding SnG's for a living is one of the more inefficient ways to make a wage in poker, it seems you have more players at 100bb/ mtts 'giving it away'.

[Dennis__]

@Groggy I basically agree with everything you said. I am just to lazy to switch to other formats though. I quite like the relative simplicity of SNGs compared to other formats, especially the hyper version

Edit: Especially what you said first is gold true. I think it was Phil Galfond who said it´s not only about the money you lost, it´s also about the money you didn´t win while already spending it in your head. I definitely had some ridiculous expectations about this promo.

[Groggy]

Where do you think (some) other regulars might have an edge on you? (If you are being completely objective) Where do you have an edge on them?

It's hard to say what average ROI is possible in these line ups (What is even considered a good ROI in this format?) but considering all these games have been completely infested with regs since the promo started, where a healthy amount of line ups have literally been all regs, the average reg must only have made a 1 or 2% roi so far. Obviously some will have a better ROI than that and some will have lost. There hasn't been enough recreational players in the pools to account for the mass amount of regs. Recreationals don't care about rake, so there's probably a similar amount of rec's in the pools now as there were before. 

[Groggy]

I know of someone who played 6-man SnG's on another site. He was the best reg in the pools and was finding the format a bit stale so he flicked in a few MTT sessions. He couldn't believe how soft they were and basically transitioned over to them full time and was better than nearly all the MTT regs already. I think he still plays some 6 man sng's when they run, but as far as I know makes a better income now. It's easy to be lazy and stick to a format you know/ are comfortable with but sometimes it's worth giving new things a chance.

[laifstaile]

IMO...if u play 5/6-man SnGs and crush them then MTT is almost walk in the park( if corona restrictions allow it)....this is thanks to ability to play shallow stacks....is u r relatively deep then it is just wait and apply right amount of pressure...

[Dennis__]

1% to 2% ROI seems reasonable. At least if you have a -10% fish on every second table and the rest regs. Hard to say though as I stack my tables.

 

I certainly don't deny that MTTs can be more profitable than SNGs. There are more problems though. The inflexible schedule and increased variance turn me off as well.

Fwiw I have added some DoNs recently on party. New but rather simple format with less variance and more recs/mistakes from regs. Maybe that's the way to go

[Dennis__]

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@Groggy wrote:

Where do you think (some) other regulars might have an edge on you? (If you are being completely objective) Where do you have an edge on them?

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It´s hard to say because I don´t even know who the opponents are. MTT or cash regs, SNG regs from other sites? If so they might normally play hypers like I do. 

My deepstacked play is certainly worse than my shortstacked play. One of the problems is that I probably stick out like the other high volume player, so people can adjust to me while I can´t adjust to them

[Dennis__]

tiny update: played a small session with merely 5 games. Lost every flip and another 60€. Games aren´t running though.

[Dennis__]

If it wasn´t so damn expensive I could laugh it off. Played a bit more and lost even more. 1.070€ down from the original deposit. I filmed the hour and am thinking of uploading the video but it´s quite an awful format to watch and probably not very enjoyable. This hand summed it up quite nicely

[Dennis__]

Had a bit of a lazy day today. 2 hours of studying poker after getting up, then studied some chess and Welsh and watched some Blackadder. I kept a close eye on the leaderboard with the intention of getting into the games should 3rd place move but he didn´t so I didn´t bother either. It seemed like barely anybody could achieve anything anymore on the leaderboard so many people seemed to be in a similar spirit like me. So I will get 375€ for 2nd place, which puts the total minus at 700€. I guess that´s about 20 times my average buyin, which really isn´t even that much, but it still hurts.

It´s hard to stay 100% objective about this but I think party poker is more profitable for me at this point. I plan on having tomorrow as a study day and then grind the rest of the week over there. After that I will reconsider how to spend the remaining 2 weeks of the month.

[GR1ZZL3R]

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@Dennis__ wrote:

 I plan on having tomorrow as a study day and then grind the rest of the week over there. After that I will reconsider how to spend the remaining 2 weeks of the month.

A cunning plan!

 

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[Dennis__]

I won´t be updating on my party results here any further but for those interested I played 2,5 hours there today and managed to burn another 500$. This is fun

except it isn´t

[P0kerM0nk]

In times like these you definitely need a strong mental game. I'm currently also battering my way through a period where I'm starting to think everyone has an edge over me... fun it is indeed.

[Dennis__]

@P0kerM0nk I guess it might be even worse in cashgames because you typically get more play before the money goes in, which provides more chances for potential mistakes.

One of the worst things about poker I find is that bad play and bad luck are indistinguishable when only looking at the results. I feel like I am one of the more unlucky players in the game but at the same time I understand that most people think they are and the math just doesn´t add up, a lot of people have to be wrong about it and I could easy be one of them. 

And another thing is that this stupid variance doesn´t have a memory, if you were the least lucky player this year you could still be the least lucky player next year. There is absolutely no way of knowing or avoiding it if it happens, and that´s just stupid

[P0kerM0nk]

It's even harder to know on Unibet as you can't track hands. I know what you mean about feeling the unluckiest in the games and I often have that feeling too (lately) but it is probably a misinterpretation anyway as you can't see how others are doing and it probably isn't all rainbows and sunshines for them all the time either. But it does feel like there are some luckbox regs around to me as well lol.

My games are often like this lately:

Not much you can do really and just keep on battling the storm and hope your bankroll can take it for as long as it's needed. I see so many bad plays going on from regs but I'm the one struggling to build the bankroll up and it does feel like I'm a fish on the tables at times. It's hard to stop leveling yourself into thinking all the regs are on some advanced strategy you haven't heard of yet 🤣 Anyway I don't like whining too much as that makes me sound even more like a fish 😏 Hope 'luck' turns in to your favour back soon @Dennis__  Good luck!

[Dennis__]

I agree with everything you said except one thing

that AA vs 44 hand was actually a 1 outer

[Groggy]

I think it's possible you might be underestimating the importance of deep-stacked play for win rate in these 5-man sng's. I've put in quite a lot of volume at them in the last 3 months-ish without ever studying ICM (although I have played a lot of MTT's and Satties in my time so I think I can make decent guestimates).  I think it would be arrogant to think that much of my edge is going to be in the ICM spots but my ROI is still good. I find the pool to be better preflop than they are postflop and I think that's where most my EV is coming from.